The mourning
by Not Just a Nerd
Summary: In which Leonard helps Sara cope with the anniversary of her death. Leonard X Sara. One-shot.
**Disclaimer: I do not own LOT or any of the characters.**

Sara Lance is not someone who likes to let others see her weak and vulnerable side, and she certainly doesn't like to reach out and ask for help. But there are days when her entire life seems to be captured within the fist of one giant question mark, like she is searching for something that does not even exist, and yet she is trapped in that futile journey, doomed to waste away her life. Redemption versus destiny, it's an ongoing battle inside her head, and it's one of those days when she knows she can't fight alone.

She walks to his room and sees him wiping his gun with what she thinks is an expensive silk cloth. Taking a moment to reign in her amusement, she knocks on his open door and waits for him to look at her. When he does, she casually raises an eyebrow. "Wanna go out for a drink?"

He places his gun away, leans against the door-frame in a posture mimicking hers and regards her curiously. "That almost sounds like a pick-up line."

"It's more of a pick-me-up situation, actually," she confesses. He has become her confidante, her friend even, and there's no point in hiding it from him. "Today's the anniversary of my death. My _actual_ death."

It's funny to even say that, because she had come back from certain death twice before finally succumbing to it, and even then, she cheated death and came back. She could say at the cost of her soul, but that would be lying. She lost her soul to the devil what seems like ages ago.

His features soften, with a hint of sympathy in his eyes, but he forces a smirk on his face. "It's the 1960s. You are not even born yet."

"You know what I mean, Leonard."

He does. She means the time when her friend was talked into shooting fatal arrows at her, the time when she had to be buried, when she had to leave everything and everyone she loved behind. How does a person come back from that and not feel terrified every second that they breathe? He silently shuts the door, places the "Trespassers will be frozen to death and buried in the Alps" sign on the door-knob, and motions for her to lead the way.

She flips the sign over to the other side, with the "Do not enter unless you want to stumble into a private moment" written on it that never fails to make her laugh. Feeling lighter already, she starts to walk with a bounce in her steps, off the ship and into the street, with no specific destination in mind.

Their usual routine is to hit a bar, start a brawl or stir up trouble while he maybe robs a few things. But this is one day when she doesn't really feel like that. She could use the liquor, but not the crowd and the noise, and she's afraid that a fight might make her lose control over herself. All she really needs is the company of the person she's currently with. Maybe he has a better idea about how to spend the evening?

"So what do you think a girl's supposed to do for her death anniversary?" she asks him casually.

He pretends to think for a moment, and then gives up with a shrug. "Haunt a graveyard maybe, considering dead people are usually, you know, dead."

Now there's something about him that she never knew. "You actually believe in ghosts?"

He rolls his eyes. "Let's see. We are on a space ship, fighting an immortal psychopath, with a reborn winged woman and two people who merge to become a flying flamethrower. Yeah, you're right, _ghosts_ seem implausible."

She rolls her eyes too. "You should be called Snark, not Snart."

He takes a detour to the left, still not having decided where they are going. "Take that up with Cisco, he seems to be the authority on naming us."

She remembers picking her name with the league, when she had to say goodbye to the girl she used to be. Now, she has another name, and she's trying to leave her past behind again, be another person, a better one, one who finds the alternative to killing, and she really wishes her sister could see her like this. "Laurel gave me the name White Canary. She told me to be a hero in the light. She's always been this annoyingly optimistic, even when we were kids."

He suddenly stops walking, as if he has a plan. "I think I know what a resurrected girl's supposed to do for her death anniversary. Come on."

She follows him out of sheer curiosity, hoping they don't get lost in the era before GPS and maps.

He leads her back to the ship.

"Alright, this is how it's gonna work," he tells her when they reach his room, "I'm going to let you enter my territory, and you're never going to mention it again." He opens the door, and waits for her. She trusts him enough to go in without questioning him.

She watches him shift through a douffle-bag, and pull out an old mp3 player with ear-phones that look like they got torn a long time back and have been put back together delicately with tape.

"I know you like dancing, and I've got the songs from back when I was in my twenties and you were a teen," he explains, as he passes her the player. "I'll leave you with it. Nobody would ever enter my room. Knock yourself out."

He leaves, shutting the door behind him with a small click, letting her have the room to herself.

It takes her a moment to process the fact that he just trusted her to be in his room, unsupervised, with his gun, and God knows what else. When was the last time somebody showed this much faith in her?

She plugs the ear-phones into her ears and hits play. These are songs from when she was just a carefree kid, living a normal, happy life with her parents and her annoying elder sister. It doesn't take her back in time like people claim music does, instead it leaves her with a longing for the girl that she used to be.

And maybe that's what she is supposed to do. Maybe she is supposed to grieve the person that she was, the one who is lost, perhaps forever.

Maybe saying a proper goodbye to her is how she can become something more.

Slowly, she starts dancing, letting her body move in rhythm with the tunes that are all too familiar yet so foreign. It's therapeutic, like a release, a purging, like her own personal eulogy for herself. All the pain inside her bubbles to the surface, and slowly, it leaves her. After an hour or two, she feels happy.

She feels _alive_.

She leaves his room with a smile on her face, and finds him sitting with Rip, going over newspaper archives. She doesn't have the words to express her gratitude, and honestly, she doesn't need to. He already knows. He knew exactly what she needed.

He's one of the many good things that has come to her life because of her coming back to life.

And she'll be damned if she doesn't make the most of it.

Once again, she asks him, "Wanna go out for a drink?"

 **A/N: I hope you like it :D**


End file.
